‘…a teenage girl with a crush is frightening.’

Spend any time with an online fangirl community, whether the crush object is a murderer or a fictional wolf-prince or just a plain old pop star, and you’ll soon enough hear about “the feels.” (I JUST WANT TO JUMP OFF A CLIFF OR SOMETHING BECAUSE SITTING HERE WITH THESE FEELS DHFLKJDFHLDKJFH.)

According to urbandictionary, “the feels” are “the feelings you get when you watch or look at some sort of picture of video, most times of a celebrity, where you cannot place what your feeling (usually feelings of the sexual variety).”

The feels are sexual, but not merely or exclusively so. They are distinct from pre-internet emotionsin that they are more like feelings for feelings’ sake. The internet, with its wealth of intangible content, is the feels’ native land; an internet crush is the feels personified.

You can’t do anything about the feels except feel them, then maybe go look at some more pictures online. They are an appetite that does not expect to be sated, an intensity without any perceivable end.